Woman fights off tiger with ladle

Squirrel hunter Tambun Gediu has told of the moment his soup ladle-wielding wife saved him from being mauled to death by a tiger in Malaysia.

Cat’s a lucky escape: Tambun Gediu was saved by his plucky wife from a tiger (Alamy)

Mr Tambun said he was crouching to shoot a squirrel with his blowpipe when he spied the big cat eyeing him for dinner. ‘That’s when I realised that I was being trailed,’ said the 60-year-old.

Moments later, man and beast were locked in a struggle for life and death, ended only when Mr Tambun’s wife, Han Besau, 55, ran out to batter the tiger with a soup ladle.

‘I was terrified and I used all my strength to punch the animal in the face but it would not budge,’ said Mr Tambun from his hospital bed.

‘I had to wrestle with it to keep its jaws away from me, and it would have clawed me to death if my wife had not arrived.’ The tiger, estimated to weigh about 90kg (198lb), took flight after Mrs Han’s spirited wooden-ladle attack.

Her husband received deep wounds to his head, face and limbs but is expected to make a full recovery following the incident near his home in Kg Sungai Tiang, a jungle settlement of the Jahai tribe, about 260km (160miles) north of the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur.

Shabrina Shariff, the state’s wildlife department director, said officers would try to track the tiger, believed to be a male, as it may target humans again.